Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Apparently the case is being made that Michael Jackson was murdered with a lethal dose of a medication administered by his doctor. Even if the doctor is indicted and found guilty of murdering Michael Jackson, in my opinion Michael Jackson was a willing accomplice in his own murder, and (to a lesser degree) so were his family members and close friends.

Michael Jackson deserves to take some responsibility for his own death insofar as he knew what he was doing when he sought out doctors who prescribed a variety of drugs in very large quantities, and he knew the lethal risks involved when he took those drugs.

The same can be said for his family members and close friends: they knew what he was doing, they knew the risks he was taking, and they knew he was on a collision course with death and tragedy. And yet no one intervened, most likely due to the fear that if they did they would incur his wrath and be cast out of his inner circle.

One might rebut that there was nothing his family or friends could do, even if they wanted to, because of his money, power and influence, but that's simply not true. Any one of them could have contacted the authorities and made the case that, because of all the lethal drugs he was consuming, he was a danger to himself, which is the criteria for someone being placed on a 72-hour hold against their will in a psychiatric facility.

Had anyone done this, it is entirely possible he would have been held in such a facility and that treatment would have been initiated that might have saved his life.

Sadly, when most of us are confronted with similar issues in our own lives and relationships, we do the very same thing that Michael Jackson's friends and family did: nothing definitive.

Fearing rejection and abandonment if we force our loved ones into life-saving scenarios they are not interested in due to their self-destructiveness, most of us choose not to do it. This is a mistake.

Just as, when we love someone we need to let them be who they are even if that might lead them to leave us, when we love someone and see them destroying themselves, it is our responsibility to do whatever is necessary to intervene and save their life, even if it means they might resent us and sever the relationship.

Bottom line: We must look at the relationships in our lives and if we recognize loved ones going down paths of self-destruction, we must use all our powers, despite our own fears of potential rejection and abandonment, to help them get on a better path, one that will heal them and help them extend rather than terminate their lives.